Classics for Kids
Composers and Their Countries
How many of the world's greatest composers were born in Austria? Or Germany? Or the United States? An interactive map provides young musicians with information about prominent composers in the last few centuries, as well as the periods...
Ohio Department of Education
Describing and Creating Plane Figures - Grade One
Young mathematicians draw, create, and describe different shapes using triangles. They discuss attributes of the original and created shapes. Pupils classify the created shapes and draw and write in mathematics journals to communicate...
National Council of Teachers of English
A Bear of a Poem: Composing and Performing Found Poetry
Scholars work collaboratively to compose a found poem from one of their favorite stories. With a finished product in hand, class members form a circle and perform their work for an audience by taking turns reciting one line till the poem...
Curated OER
The Old Man and the Sea: Questioning Strategies
Readers learn to ask questions about text with an activity based on Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. As they read, class members craft questions based on Bloom's Taxonomy and then find the answers themselves.
Curated OER
19th & 20th Century Composers: Exoticism
VH1 Music Studio has put out another great lesson that incorporates analysis, compare/contrast, and musical terminology. Kids will listen to the song "Habanera" considering the use of specific instruments in evoking a sense of location....
Curated OER
Romantic and 20th Century Period Music
Upper graders explore the similarities, differences, and depth of pop music from the Romantic era and the 20th century. They listen to selections that exemplify the Baroque, Romantic, and 20th century periods, then create presentations...
Queen's Printer for Ontario
Composers in Music History
What do Johann Sebastian Bach and Miles Davis have in common? Much more than class members might imagine. The comparison of these two famous composers is just one lesson in a unit that investigates many facets of the music industry...
Curated OER
Be Sharp and Never Flat
An outstanding lesson on music awaits your young composers! They learn about patterns found in music, the different sections of an orchestra, and see the differences between musicians and a composer. Excellent streamed videos and good...
Curated OER
Strong Descriptive Writing: James and the Giant Peach
Support your writers! Clear procedures and appropriate support make this a superb resource for elementary writing instruction. Ready your class to compose original descriptive paragraphs inspired by the episode in Roald Dahl's James and...
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Elements of Music—How do Composers Plan?
The introduction to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and the finale of his Symphony No. 4 provide young musicians with an opportunity to investigate the music elements composers employ to develop the themes they want to create. They compare the...
Hookshot Creative
Compose Your Own Music
Channel the masters with an interactive music composition activity! Learners use the online tool to create their own masterpieces one measure at a time.
Curated OER
Pride and Prejudice: Magic Square Activity
Turn Pride and Prejudice into a math activity with a magic squares lesson. Kids read nine character traits and pair them to a list of the book's characters in order to complete the activity and find the magic number.
College Board
Balance of Power Between Congress and the President
Three branches of government help create a system of checks and balances. A helpful resource provides a series of articles regarding the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches of government. Historians answer...
Curated OER
Peter and the Starcatchers: Multi-Genre Writing Assignment
Conclude your unit on Peter and the Starcatchers with an involved final writing project that requires learners to write persuasive pieces, compose short stories, create brochures about the setting of the novel, and choose from a...
Curated OER
Lesson Ideas for Comparing and Contrasting Content
Here are three lesson ideas to help students learn how to compare and contrast information in any content area
Curated OER
Geometry and Shapes
High schoolers discuss and identify polygons and lines. In this geometry instructional activity, learners review liner, square and cubic units so they can incorporate it into the instructional activity on measurement and creating packing...
Community Resources for Science
A Whole New World of DNA and Proteins
Lead your young scientists into an exciting world as they participate in a role play and experiment focused on proteins and DNA. After researching the Central Dogma of Biology, individuals or groups participate in a classroom...
Classics for Kids
"Mars" from The Planets
Gustav Holst's The Planets provide young musicians an opportunity to examine how composers can create a suite: a collection of smaller pieces grouped to explore a single topic. After listening to "Jupiter," they examine "Mars" in...
BBC
The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky
Over the course of six lessons, scholars try their hand at composing and dancing after a thorough examination of the famous ballet, The Nutcracker, by Tchaikovsky. Participants watch and discuss the performance of two dances, create...
Wisconsin Family Assistance Center for Education
Sight Word Lists and Activities
Scholars examine newspaper articles and highlight two sight words to discover which appears more frequently. They then glue sight words onto paper to make flashcards before composing, writing, and creating picture representations of...
Curated OER
Thrilling Information: Music and Reading
Here’s a cross-curricular program music activity that uses Peer Gynt to engage class members. Groups take one section of “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” choreograph their section of the tune to represent the story as they imagine it,...
Curated OER
Composition in Journals
Carlos Fuentes’s The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait and Jaspre Bark’s Journal of Inventions: Leondardo da Vince serve as models for an assignment that asks class members to create a personal journal they will use...
Illustrative Mathematics
Shake and Spill
Entertaining as well as educational, this math activity about decomposing numbers is bound to capture the engagement of young learners. Given a cup and five two-color counters, young mathematicians simply shake and spill the cup,...
The New York Times
Making Do: Learning and Growing Through Adversity
What is it that makes people keep going when they face challenges in life? Ask your class to consider this question in relation to their own experiences and as they read material from The New York Times. Using personal experiences...